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to the Alumni Association’s 2004 Distinguished Honorees
Dr Daniel Colley
Judge Benjamin Dickinson
Rev. Washio Ishii
David Greer
Dr. Daniel Colley ’64
Dan Colley ’64 didn’t set out to become one of the world’s leading experts in tropical diseases. It just sort of happened.
After graduate school at Tulane and a post-doc at Yale, he fell into an opportunity to spend nine months in Brazil, where he first met schistosomes, parasitic worms that afflict more than two hundred million people in the world.
?I was totally captivated,? he says. ?The more I got into it, the more interesting it was.? And it wasn’t just the research aspects.
“I’m a basic immunologist, and I work with little bitty questions at the bench about this protein or that protein and the immune response,” he explains. “But the reason that there’s schistosomiasis in the world is poor sanitation. And if you work on a disease like schisto, you can’t avoid thinking about these other aspects.
“That’s the kind of broad thinking that I got from Centre. And it just tickled my fancy. Here I could do real nitty-gritty research, but I could do it on something that made me think about and participate in discussions about broader issues than my own particular professional interests. “And I like that. I like that a lot.”
Variety appeals to Colley, who as a Centre student struggled to commit to just one major. After 22 years as a microbiology professor and research scientist at Vanderbilt, he made a nine year foray into public health as director of the parasitic diseases division at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
But the lure of research continued to beckon. At an age when many of his classmates are contemplating retirement, Colley took a new position at the University of Georgia in 2001, doing research full time, teaching, and running the interdisciplinary Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases.
“It isn’t easy,” he says. “But it sure is fun.”
Hometown: Western N.Y.
Now lives in: Athens, Ga.
Family: wife Mary Paxton Durr Colley ’64; son Thomas Colley
Education: B.A. biology, Centre; Ph.D. microbiology and immunology, Tulane; postdoctoral work, Yale
Career: immunologist. Currently director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases and professor of microbiology at the University of Georgia
Honors: Teacher of the Year and Jack Davies Prize (for teaching) from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; serves on grant review panels for the World Health Organization, National Institutes of Health, and various private foundations
Judge Benjamin Dickinson ’64
Benny Dickinson ’64, of Glasgow, Ky., likes to say that the only time he’s lost an election has been when he’s been opposed. An avid storyteller whose Glasgow roots stretch back several generations, his runs at public office have included six successful races for district and circuit court judge.
The overriding theme to his life, he notes, is luck, not planning.
Luck that Pete Leech ’43, a Centre admission director from Glasgow, persuaded Dickinson to attend Centre instead of the University of Tennessee. Luck that Terry Hatchett ’23, a trustee from Glasgow (and 1969 Distinguished Alumnus), then paid his tuition so he could finish school. And luck that just as he was getting started in his law career, Kentucky overhauled its judicial system. A friend suggested he run for one of the new district judgeships; he did and won, beginning a successful 24-year career on the bench.
Since retiring in 2001, he has continued his long-standing service on the Kentucky Bar Association’s Ethics Hotline Committee, writing one or two opinions a week. A Boy Scout for more than 50 years, he is an active fundraiser for a Scout camp. An amateur historian, he serves on several local history commissions, including one to restore an 1825 Glasgow house that once belonged to his great-great grandfather and another to restore a Civil War fort. He was also the founding chair of the Renaissance/Main Street Glasgow program.
“I really liked being a judge,” he says. “And I really liked going to Centre. I couldn’t have been at a better place.”
Hometown: Glasgow, Ky.
Family: wife Sondra Dickinson; children Sam Dickinson ’92, Dawn Reynolds, and Anna Dickinson
Education: B.A. economics, Centre; J.D., University of Kentucky
Career: judge for Kentucky’s 43rd circuit and 43rd district
Honors: twice elected by fellow judges to administrative
positions
Rev. Washio Ishii ’60
Washio Ishii ’60 was raised a Buddhist in Tokyo, Japan, but spent most of his adult life as a Presbyterian minister in Huntsville, Ala. The road to his unlikely journey leads straight through Centre College.
Ishii recalls that he was working as a stock broker on the Tokyo Exchange when, to learn English, he joined a neighbor’s Bible study. A young Christian missionary from Kentucky, Jean Gartrell, caught his fancy, and before long the two had wed. When he wanted to study in the United States, his bride suggested the alma mater of her brother, Charles Gartrell ’35. After graduating from Centre and seminary, Ishii accepted a call to lead three small churches in Alabama.
The language barrier was difficult, he admits, and for many years he carried an English-Japanese dictionary wherever he went. Serving three rural congregations was also a challenge. ?Everything is three times,? he recalls. ?Sermon three times. Committee meetings three times.? Not to mention the 20-mile drive between churches.
But the congregations welcomed Ishii, and he enjoyed his time both as a minister and as a certified Transactional Analysis counselor.
“I like to help people,” he says simply.
Now retired, he has taken up new pursuits, including flying a World War II P-51 Mustang (as the co-pilot), tap dancing, and teaching Japanese twice a week at the University of Alabama Huntsville.
“I am immensely grateful to Centre College,” he says. “The professors were so nice. If I did not understand, they spent the extra time with me. And that was very comforting.
Hometown: Tokyo, Japan
Now lives in: Huntsville, Ala.
Family: children Timothy Ishii, Helen Ishii. Wife Jean died in 1989
Education: B.A. psychology, Centre; M.Div., Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
Career: stockbroker, minister, counselor
Young Alumnus
David Greer ’92
Hometown: Oakland, Ky.
Now lives in: Hartford, Conn.
Family: daughter Jamila Fè
Education: B.S. economics, Centre;
M.B.A., University of Chicago
Career: New business development manager at United Technologies Corp.
Honors: Rotary Scholar to American University, Cairo, Egypt
Quote: “Centre College was a launch pad for the rest of my life and career. We were always told that we can achieve whatever we put our minds to. . . . Centre prepares you to achieve what you can dream.”
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